


Zugzwang

by svecounia



Category: VITORI - Cirque du Soleil
Genre: F/M, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:21:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svecounia/pseuds/svecounia
Summary: The Black Queen is playing a long game, and it's one she aims to win at any cost.
Relationships: Golden King/Black Queen
Kudos: 4





	Zugzwang

There was a tension there, and if she crooked her little finger he would feel it draw tight. It would jerk him forward by the chest– no, by the neck, like a dog on a leash. He was already so good at coming when called. She could send out a knight, a bishop, a pawn, even, and he'd shake from his glittering haze for a little while and reach for her. Sometimes she'd even draw close, so near that she could feel the heat of his shine and shiver at the mingled determination and fear in his eyes. He wore it as beautifully as he did his crown.

His queen always dragged him back before long. And the Black Queen allowed it. It was a long game, after all. The two queens might have been alike in title but they were _not_ alike in strategy.

So the Black Queen sent out a rook. They were desperately predictable, rigidly traditional little things. Nearly as expendable as a pawn. It was just the sort of move the Golden Queen would know hinted at some lurking danger. 

But there was none. She laughed to see the Golden Queen so vexed by a Black Rook so far from home, unaccompanied and unguarded, not even by a lurking bishop or worse, the Black Queen herself. But when, satisfied that the risk was minimal, the Golden Queen stepped aside and let her king take the field in her stead, the Black Queen's amusement gave way to hungry anticipation. 

_Take her,_ she willed him with ruthless glee. _Take her and tear her apart._ Bloodshed was the Golden King's birthright whether he liked it or not, and nothing would have given her greater, sweeter pleasure than to watch him tear her own rook limb from limb. 

He reached like he always did. 

But not for her. 

No. This would not do. 

She took to the field herself in a billowing rage. A mere gesture sent the Black Rook on a reluctant retreat, but the Golden King's yearning gaze followed and that only fueled the queen's fury. A rook. A _rook,_ one she had placed in his path herself, when she had centered her entire existence around taking him for her own.

The Black Queen swept into position and at last he was forced to face her. There was that glittering conviction she craved so much. She imagined what it would look like melted down, reforged, hammered out into something new and shining and brilliant. More than his own queen and certainly no rook could ever make of him. He was nothing without her push and pull, he hung in stasis without her, and as his bow skidded across the strings of his cello she flared to vicious life as only he could inspire her. 

He would be _hers._ She twisted her intent into her silks and knotted them tight. This was her war dance, her promise, and her tether.

She hung, and he would hang with her.


End file.
